Flyers at Rangers
The Philadelphia Flyers look to extend their point streak to eight games and continue ascending in the Metropolitan Division Sunday afternoon when they visit the struggling New York Rangers. The Flyers, who suffered through a 10-game losing streak earlier this season, are 5-0-2 in their last seven outings after Sean Couturier’s goal clinched a 2-1 overtime victory at Columbus on Friday.
“We’re more and more comfortable in these (tight) games,” Philadelphia coach Dave Hakstol told reporters after the win in Columbus. “We’ve won a lot of these games, and that’s a lot of credit to our guys staying with it. We give up a late goal off a shot block and it doesn’t rattle anything on our bench a bit.” The Flyers dropped a 5-1 decision at New York on Jan. 16 and have lost seven of eight against the Rangers, who are fading out of the Eastern Conference playoff picture with seven defeats in the past nine games overall. New York, which is playing without four of its top seven defensemen due to injuries, fell 6-3 at Ottawa on Saturday afternoon for its third straight loss and sits five points out of the second wild-card spot. Third-leading scorer Pavel Buchnevich (33 points) returned after missing seven games with a concussion and the 22-year-old Russian forward posted an assist for the Rangers on Saturday.
TV: Noon ET, NBC, TVA
ABOUT THE FLYERS (29-19-10): All-Star forward Claude Giroux registered four goals in the last five games, leaving him one shy of 200 in his career, and leads the team with 66 points - one better than Jakub Voracek, who has 12 in his last 11 contests. Couturier’s goal Friday was the 99th of his career and the former eighth overall pick is one away from reaching 30 for the first time in his seven NHL seasons. Defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere continues his strong bounce-back season with 12 of his 45 points in the last eight contests and a plus-10 rating overall after finishing with 39 points and a minus-21 in 2016-17.
ABOUT THE RANGERS (27-27-5): Marc Staal, Ryan McDonagh, Kevin Shattenkirk and Steven Kampfer are all missing on the back end and the makeshift defense could not hold back Ottawa on Saturday. Right wing Michael Grabner, an unrestricted free agent after the season, continued to raise his price on the trade market with two goals Saturday to push his team-leading total to 25 - four coming in the last five games. Forwards Mats Zuccarello (team-best 41 points) and J.T. Miller (38) each snapped brief droughts with an assist in the loss to Ottawa while center Mika Zibanejad scored for just the third time in 16 games.
OVERTIME
1. New York LW Rick Nash, another trade target, has been kept off the scoresheet in four straight games and sits at 798 career points.
2. Philadelphia G Michal Neuvirth is 3-0-1 with a .946 save percentage since taking over for injured G Brian Elliott (lower-body).
3. Rangers G Henrik Lundqvist, who was pulled in the third period Saturday, is 35-14-4 lifetime against the Flyers with a .920 SP.